Top of the Tweets: Jan 13

At seven, “man of liberty, man of culture and man of peace” (not to mention chairman of the New Progressive Party) Roh Hoi-chan (@hcroh), who RT’ed this short message from Ho Jae-hyeon (@welovehani), a journalist with the broadcasting team at the Hankyoreh newspaper.

The Ministry of Justice has decided to suspend anti-discrimination laws that included a provision on homosexuals. Conservative Christian organisations have won a terrible victory, but no media outlets have been reporting it. Why is that?

Homosexuality has received a fair bit of attention in the Korean media of late. Toward the end of last year, the depiction of a gay couple in the TV soap Life is Beautiful caused consternation among the, um, highly opinionated Union of Mothers, while the Constitutional Court and the Korean military tussled with the vexed issue of whether to allow openly gay men to serve in the armed forces. As surprisingly “liberal” as the Constitutional Court’s ruling may have seemed, this latest incident may well indicate just how much of a mountain Korea’s gay rights campaigners still have to climb.

The words of a priest! God gave us trials that anyone can endure. Jesus is just such a person, so God had him suffer on the Cross. So in times of difficulty, just think, “Ah! I’m someone who can endure problems of that degree, so that must be why God has presented me with these trials!”

When the cleaners, security guards and cafe workers at Harvard went on strike, the students missed classes and staged a sit-in protest in the chancellor’s office, in order to help secure the wellbeing of those workers. Professors held special classes for these students, and famous actors came to offer their support.

Go alludes to a recent incident at Hongik University (which he reports on here) in which the university’s dinner ladies, janitors and other service staff all faced the sack when Hongik’s contract with their employment agency expired. Far from offering their support, the students reportedly complained about the interruption to their studies caused by the contract workers’ protest at the university. How times have changed.

At four comes @withMBC, the Twitter feed for the MBC network, with this jocular appeal related to their popular show 무한도전, or “Limitless Challenges”, and its ubiquitous host Park Myung-soo, who is trying to be reunited with his earliest flame:

We are looking for Park Myung-soo’s first love “Jinny,” who he shared his first ever kiss with in 1989 in the Il-Il Cafe near Ewah University. (Darkish skin, no double eyelids, short, straight hair and snow-washed jeans.) Please let me know!

At three it’s Top Tweet regular Kim Juha, with an RT of an appeal for information about a missing child.

A handicapped child has gone missing. She disappeared on the way back from attending a class at the Bucheon Samjeong Welfare Centre. It happened at around 4:50, she is about 170cm tall, and is a sophomore in middle school. She was wearing a black jumper and jeans, and she has a “sports” haircut. She likes taking buses.

At two, from “the bear who loves jokes” @pudidic, comes a rather downbeat assessment of whether Korea will ever be able to produce its own Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg.

If Facebook had come from Korea: 1) It would have been hard for its founders to drop out of school and get backing. 2) Because of the real-name system, it would have been impossible to promote the service worldwide. 3) Because of the need for advance consultation with the Game Rating Board, it would be impossible to connect [FB] games worldwide. 4) Anyone wanting to pay for items would be forced to do so through Active-X.

Word.

And finally, continuing his ownership of the No. 1 spot, it’s Lee Oi-soo, with this teaser:

After waking up in the morning and rubbing their eyes, why did the rabbit intending to go and wash its face not do so and just drink water? I’m looking forward to some witty answers. You might be able to get some more extraordinary answers by asking your children.

In case you’re wondering where Lee could come up with such a leftfield question, it’s a lyric from the old Korean nursery rhyme 옹달샘, or “Mountain Spring. (See here for a cute, multicultural rendition.)
The 3,415 replies include such ruminations as: “The rabbit suffers from somnambulism,” “it forgot,” and “it’d had a pee and was thirsty.” How many of those will be earning the hallowed “Lee Oi-soo follow,” I wonder?